Yet Another Blogger (YAB)!!!

Ebook reading

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:38:00 +0000

I'm really a download buff - trying to download as many ebooks as possible - but I'm not sure if I would actually read through them atleast once. But off late, I'm having a longing to get an ebook reader - with so many ebooks on my ibook, I find it difficult to access them, especially while travelling.

This week, by quite a surprise, I found out that my ibook was quite helpful in getting me go through my ebooks - no big surprises here - I use Preview for reading the pdfs - rotated them left by 90 degrees and then, made sure they were page aligned. Well, I could get to about 1.5 hrs of reading in this manner and with a nice back ground music, i was really a time nice spent.

Post by email

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:32:00 +0000

It has been a long hiatus from the regular blogging I had done. With more office work mounting on, it is even hard for me to go through my library of blog rolls at Bloglines. After a long time, I chked out the blogger pages and thought that I would try posting a post through the email facility.

Win the battle, but lose the War

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:27:00 +0000

I was seeing the Men's doubles QF match between India and Switzerland in the 2008 Olympics. It was interesting to see the Indians face the serves from Fedex and trying to match him. One thing was obvious - the confidence in the game of Fedex could be seen in the grace in how he played the game. His humbleness in the game was also visible. Especially when the Indian duo trying to show off with pumping hands into the air after fighting hard to get a point. The duo were concerned only about that point - Should they not have concentrated to win the war? I suppose their visiblity was only to win the battle and not see anything beyond that.

ESTJ

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:02:00 +0000

I told you who I am through my VisualDNA. And for fun, I tried the Myers Briggs Personality test at 41q - and here is what the site tells about me ...

Your personality type:

Friendly, adaptable, action-oriented. 'Doers' who are focused on immediate results. Living in the here-and-now, they're risk-takers who live fast-paced lifestyles. Impatient with long explanations. Extremely loyal to their peers, but not usually respectful of laws and rules if they get in the way of getting things done. Great people skills.

Careers that could fit you includes:

Sales representatives, marketers, police, detectives, paramedics, medical technicians, computer technicians, computer technical support, entrepreneurs, comedians, agents, race car drivers, firefighters, military, loan sharks, con men, auditors, carpenters, craft workers, farmers, laborers, service workers, transportation operatives.

And here's my results - but do I believe them - not that much - but, some questions are a bit tricky and I had to squeeze a few extra cells of my brain and I like that :)

And I seem to be a ESTJ - to more about it in detail, look here, here and here

DEC is dead, Long live DEC

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:33:00 +0000

After a long time I found some time to get through a book. I took a book that had been chosen by my current company's CTO as a recommended book for reading - "DEC is dead, Long live DEC". The book consists of three major sections taking about DEC's culture, its decline and then the lessons learned.

I have just started with the second section. The first one was interesting. I suppose many of today's top high-tech companies inherit a lot of legacy from DEC. I suppose what Ken Olsen would have done in today's high growth, high fluctuating environment. Possibly creating a DEC out in today's rapidly changing world would be really difficult.

Personally, I felt that this book gives a lot of insight into how a technically-oriented company led by a techie would span out into. I suppose management takes a bit of back seat in these type of companies and attitude comes to the forefront. I have seen a lot of MBAs in the HR departments of many IT companies. I strongly recommend them to read this section to understand how a techie culture would be. It is more towards getting things done, solving problems, fixing issues rather than a "do this in this manner", " come through this channel", etc.

Tracy Gibbons writes a chapter on DEC's other legacy - about how DEC influenced the society as a whole. It's an interesting read. Access the full chapter online at Tracy's consultancy site.

Alltop

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:41:00 +0000

During my long hiatus from blogging on this site, I found a nice website Alltop - and I had mentioned it earlier. An update to that .... one plus and one minus.

First the good news - they have a search engine setup for their site - which I think would come more handy - but I haven't yet tried it to see how it works - but is Google powered - so should be decent.

And the minus - Initially the home page had the topics arranged by categories - if I wanted to read something on arts, books, cinema, photography, etc. - these were under one roof and it was easy for me to find all my topics at a single place. But now - they have arranged it alphabetically and I suppose this doesn't appeal great to me - topics are scattered and you might need to scroll till the end of the page to find if the topic you need is really there or not.

Hope they revert back to their categorised home page.

Calculate your consumption

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:05:00 +0000

First, it was BSNL and now it was BESCOM - I always have issues when it comes to billing with public utilities.

I recently shifted from one rented place to another. The previous one was huge but still I got a monthly electricity bill of around Rs.500/-. This new place is just over half of my earlier place - hence I expected my electricity bills to hover around Rs.300/-.

The first month when I was here - landlord said that there was some issue in the sub-meter and he charged me a round amount of Rs.500/-.

The next month the bill came to around Rs.490/-. I was a bit suspicious but still couldn't find out why I was getting it. I searched the BESCOM site and came across this consumption calculator - this was handy - and a great tool. Inputting my usage here - on a very conservative estimate - the bill amount came around Rs.350/-.
But beware, the site is not accessible most of the time - probably BESCOM should see that the link is hosted on a very reliable server.

The next month bill came - and it was a whopping Rs.1040/ - Well this is NOT something I wanted. And sure there was some mistake in the sub-meter. I called the BESCOM linemen who said that the meter was fine. Then I had to get the local electrician to check out what was the issue. There were around 40 apartments in my whole building and this was newly constructed - and my submeter was connected for two houses and hence the huge bill - now after rectifying it, the bill amount is around Rs.300/-

Thanks for being 'sensible'

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:17:00 +0000

After a gap of two years, I went to an ophthalmologist to check my eye power. During the examination, I was applied eye drops and asked to close my eyes for about an hour. It was totally a different experience - I got a call on my cell phone - now, how do I find out who it is before I take the call - especially when you have a plethora of calls that come from one bank / the other for some offer.

This is when, I found out how important it is to appreciate the presence of each and every organ and sense in your body. Most of us take for granted that we are fine and don't even think the importance of our senses in every day. But even an hour of just closing my eyes, got me into a realisation mode - how important and necessary our senses are.

This gets me to remember an old poem in Tamil by the great poet, Auvaiyar ...

"aridhu aridhu maanidaraai pirathal aridhu
maanidaraai pirandha kaalaiyin
koon kurudu sevidu neengi pirathal aridhu..."

- translated "It is rare to be born a human, Inspite of being a human, it is rare to be born without any ailments - blind, deaf, dumb"

- Thanks for how I'm created with the senses!!!

Exemplary Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:40:00 +0000

One of the company VP's visited our site yesterday. I report into his group. He is a veteran in the industry and switched his career to this present one about three years before but after what he calls "a blessed" 25 years.

Even as a VP, he is very technical about what his group is doing. Being in the semiconductor space, understanding technical stuff is itself a big effort for anyone at the Executive level. Inspite of him, coming into this role only about three years back, he had amassed a wealth of information and it was like an engineer talking to an engineer - not the regular managerial stuff.

Apart from his visit, what I like is the weekly mails he sends out. This is quite a different mail - he updates everyone under his umbrella with what is going on - this gives a better picture of where our company is headed, how our products progress, what each group does, what are the major tasks that were addressed over the week, what are the plans ahead, etc. Sending out a mail like this one serves a lot of purpose - you get to know what is happening at the high level, how the various teams interact, how your specific work affects the company, what is your importance and responsibility in the company, etc. Communications like these boost the morale of the people and also bring in a lot of enthusiasm and drive from each person.

Rather than getting a job done without details, if there is lucid communication on what is going on and where you fit in - it really helps you to understand your work and get more out of you. There you go - a great example of the importance of communication that eventually grades how good you are as a leader.

On the other hand, I have an immediate manager who is totally opposite - more on that later !!!

After a long gap ...

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:14:00 +0000

Yep, posting after a long gap ... It has almost been more than three quarters of an year that I had put up a post on this blog. Most of the time I had either been lazy or been very busy. During busy times, it had been shuffled between personal prioritues ans professional stuff. Now that I'm starting to get frustrated with things at the professional front, I want to spend some time on bringing myself 'back to form' to write some good posts.

So, did I not have time to do anything else apart from personal and professional stuff?

Mostly yes - I had been on and off and many small things ... reading a lot of blogs had been there - but I had come down quite significantly.

I discovered Alltop and this nice accumulator of blog posts is a gift for someone who likes to go through a collection of topics. I have my own feeds organized at bloglines - but Alltop seems to give more details on a topic and introduces me to new blogs.

Just a cakewalk ....

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:41:00 +0000

There comes the time of the year when you need to go through your bills to submit your IT returns. This is almost like a D-day for many when they had to gather all their annual accounts into the small form to say this is what I earned and this is what I lost and 'dear Government, here is the part I am paying you for all what you have provided me over the year and what you will provide me in the future'.

Last year I filed my returns through a CA who had come to my office. This year also, I was thinking about going through the same route. But for getting details from Form-16 and inputting them into the ITR form and with no major calculations from capital gains / others, I was a bit hesitant to pay 400 bucks for the simple filling up the form and another 100 bucks for filing the tax returns. Now, that I had to do the same for my wife, it becomes double. And I'm not certain if the guy was going to charge me more for two Form-16s from my employers over the last year.

So, DIY.

It hardly took me 30 mins to get the ITR forms filled out for me and my wife. But, I was expecting a big queue at the IT office for filing. But it was a cakewalk.

There were about 15 counters, in the Bangalore C R Building, for checking the PAN details and an additional one if you are from out of state. Then, according to the Salary Ward and Circle, there were ample counters with atleast two IT officials ready to get the forms, verify the important details and giv you back the acknowledgement form.

Wow, a simple task - finished everything in 5 mins. Bet, the CAs would be making a fortune in this period for an almost no-hassle-no-sweat-no-mind boggling job.

Back to India ...

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:42:00 +0000

Finally, after a long wait, I watched 'Sivaji - The Boss'. First, I was happy that I need not spend more money to get a ticket in black. Second, I found the film to be a good entertainer. Inspite of being on the run for over a month, the moview was spinning money at the box office - a reality that I could see from the show which I attended - tickets had been booked very early and the show was full house.

Being a good entertainer, I liked the gist of the movie. Thalaivar returns from US after a long time, working there as a Software architect. His only thoughts - to put all his hard earned money to good use. But, resistance from well settled dons and 'industrialists' peak up when someone new enters the arena. - and thus goes the movie.

Hats off to the director, Shankar, for bringing in the thought of NRIs returning back to India and making India actually grow. - But apart from this, he had failed in his department. I wish, that many people atleast take this message from the film and invest for a better India.

As the Prez hopes, that India will become a developed nation far earlier that 2020, I am certain that money invested in proper circles by returning NRIs will certainly pull that target more earlier.

Shocking bill

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:48:00 +0000

Oops!!!

It was a huge shock for me when my monthly BSNL phone+broadband bill came. Each month for my Home-500 dataone connection, I usually get around Rs. 750/- as bill, which includes an unused landline rent. But this month it had shot up four fold. Ok, now rather than calling up the customer service and giving them tirades, I wanted to see if I could reason out if the bill was right or not.

A few assumptions that I made had been wrong in my internet usage. I was thinking that I would be charged only for my download bandwidth - but the bsnl website states that the monthly cap is a cumulative of both upload and download traffic. Next, I was assuming that the free time starts from 12 midnight through till 8 am the next morning, but unfortunately, it starts only at 2am in the morning and extends the next six hours.

I went to the 'check usage' in dataone website and then tried to pull out the records related to my usage over the last month. I was able to get the traffic details over all the month with respect to each chunk of my contiguous online time. Seeing the records, I was able to atleast convince myself that the bill was indeed true. Atleast, thanks to BSNL for providing this cross checking facility.

Citizen No.1

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:57:00 +0000

Citizen No.1 is on for a change at India. When five years ago, when there was a change of guard for the post, there was an easy consensus on who would occupy the huge 350+ rooms. The choice was very optimal - a technocrat who put India onto the nuclear map - Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

Dr. APJ was a choice that no one would refute or oppose - a person who had no black mark, a person who had a great education, a person who would glorify the post of Citizen No. 1, etc, etc. A person who well deserved the post, or rather a post which deserved a person like Dr. APJ. Even after being, welcomed to the post and appointed as the President of India, he added more feathers to the post - amazing speeches, still a very accessible President, etc. A few things that are outstanding during his tenure are the opposition to the OoP bill, the speech at the EU, visit to the Siachen , etc.

Now, out of the billion others in the country, there goes the call for the new occupant of the house. With so many able people out there and a person who had glorified the house and the post, now comes a person comes who has not been in known political circles for long. Along with it she brings a lot of allegations. Now, does a country like India need a person with allegations to take up the post? Can't some one start thinking about where we are going? Just because the current occupant of the house rejected the OoP bill and did not co-ordinate with the current ruling party, we have to throw the person out and get someone who would nod her head for the ruling party? Kids play! Someone please save India.

A different weekend...

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Busy over the weekends still avoid me from contributing regularly to my blog.

A couple of weeks ago, it was a different weekend for from the normal cooking, TV and some odd professional work.

I had been to Parikrama to get introduced to what they do. First, they are a NGO working towards providing better education to children from the slums in India. I took a first had look at the working of one of their schools. They are far better than the lot of Government schools, where most of these kids could, if they can.

These kids have decent classroom facility and dedicated teachers who train them to come to better understanding of education and the society. From the personal interaction we had with the kids in their classrooms, I was amazed at the English fluency some of these kids had, their inquisitiveness to know things more, their confidence in communicating, etc.

It was different way of spending time and I hope that I might spend more time with these kids in the future.

To wind off the weekend, I also attended the Frames of Mind hosted by the Bangalore Photography club.

Travel and Travel more

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:23:00 +0000

After some continuous hectic weekends, I was able to take a bit of back seat and relax this weekend. My friend, Prasanna, introduced me to the nice film , The Motorcycle Diaries. - A great film!!!

I liked the way, 'Che' had taken the motorcycle trip with his friend Granado in his early life. This is really a classic of its own, especially when you want to explore the "Who am I" within you. Sittting inside a cubicle or four walls will not teach much except that you have to compete with your colleagues to gain better place. Coming out into the open world, puts you across real life problems - problems that need solutions, solutions that will last long, solutions that will make up the future, solutions that intertwine with our life, solutions that pose more questions and more solutions.

Everyone who thinks that he/she is a leader ought to take a journey in his/her own county, understand what the people really need and then put yourself as a tool and as a solution to solve the problem. Life is tough, many want to be leaders just by being in the circumstance only for a very little time. Time is a great teacher and with travel, there would be no book/ university education that would teach more.

In parallel, to the same travel by Che, in India also, Gandhi travelled a lot - literally making inroads into the country. In his early stages of travel, he used to wear western/formal dresses and address the gatherings. On one occassion, while during his address, and further interactions, one woman asked him, why after speaking so much about India, poverty, etc, he still wears a formal dress and this is where he understands that to be a person among others and fight for independence together with them, he should also be in their same standards. This is when, he relinquishes his formal wearing and gets in to the dothi.

Travel really makes a person wise and a wiser person a leader.

Linkedin Answers

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:47:00 +0000

It had been an hectic time over the last fortnight due to some personal emergencies ....

I recently visited linkedin after a long time to acknowledge the invitation of a colleague. I liked the Linked Answers introduced recently. Many might say that these are based on the Groups structure provided by Google/ Yahoo or others. I do agree on the concept, but still once again I prefer this as you could match the authors, of the responses, to what field they are in, what work they do, etc - giving a correlation to what they answer and who they are. This is mroe better than most of the respondents who maintain their anonimity in the other open groups.

Hoping to contibute more in these answers....

More about me .....

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 04 May 2007 16:26:00 +0000

Ok, I'm not going to write an autobiography. One of my friends sent me a link to try Imagini. For fun only :)

Here is the widget about me ....

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Learning Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 04 May 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Came across this link on the lessons of an MIT education.

A few of the lessons, especially Lesson 6, really made me think. Personally, I feel that I might have made a mistake. After completing my high school, I got a place in a very prestigious college but not in an engineering course - but an allied engineering course. But not being comfortable getting a degree in an allied engineering course, I switched to a very new college but an Engineering course. I'm still not very certain that this had been a definitive advantage/ disadvantage over the years. But like what Dr. Rota states, an education at a more competitive centre would certainly boost the confidence as well as would help us measure to a high performance. At times during my undergraduate course, I have felt that the faculty or the research level was not upto what the student needed at that time. But, well, you go into an institution in India - you have to come out of it - there is no easy way to transfer and move to be a better institution during the course of education.

Being at a well established educational institution gives a lot of opportunities to the students as well as the faculty. Being a centre of excellence, better performers congregate and this leads to higher levels of education, research and learning. Having more better minds, gives opportunity to explore more new fields, more intersecting/ overlapping arenas, etc. Better industry collaboration would be definitely on the cards.

Seeing this article, still makes me wonder how many of the institutions in India measure upto this level. IITs and IISc are a very few. But even at IITs I have been told that "Undergraduates are the products of IIT, Graduates the by-products and Ph.Ds the waste products" - I'm not trying to be critical - but how many great doctoral dissertations have we got from IITs? - how many break through technologies have we seen from students in research at IITs? - I still wonder if we have the numbers to compare with other well known institutions world wide.

Hope that India puts her best foot forward to tune up the level of education at the educational institutions so that one day, we would still be able to write an article on "Lessons from an Indian Education".

What's it like to fall in love?

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 03:29:00 +0000

This nice C&H strip gives the details!!!

Nice thought that goes into the strip and when I read this, nothing but only Indian cinema come into thought. Only in Indian cinema - most of them - revolve around love and flirting. I think Bill could have got the idea from seeing a few Indian films!!!

I have always wondered why Indian movies can't come up with something other than the subject of love and flirting. Like, a comment that I heard - "Indian movies don't have anything but except for the lovers to go around trees singing and dancing" - Indian movies have their own special formula - hero saves girl from villain - fights villain - loves girl get married and live happily!!! - why don't we have movies that try to give more importance to reality. Many youth in India are blinded by the Indian films and their sense of dealing the love affairs. With a growing youth population, and the fact that India is credited with making a large number of movies every year, people from the tinsel world have to come forward, experiment with more better subjects and give more great films. Commercialisation is a fact that has to be cared of when making a film, but exploitation of the general public on a thought and idea that they are hinged to is very bad. Let us have some really worthy films from India!!!

Applying Thought

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:37:00 +0000

After a hectic day of work, I got chance to peep over the hardcopy of the day's Times of India (Apr. 12, 2007). Fortunately, for a change, the paper added some extra info to my brain. It carried a mail from Azim Premji written to his employees. I'm not able to get a link for the same from the TOI site, but thanks to TOI for sharing the same. Managed to get the contents from their epaper ...a nice article, well written. Azim Premji once again demonstrates his leadership and communication skills on paper. A good read....

Applying thought, the Azim way
Over 60,000 Wiproites have received some powerful advice from their big boss, Azim Premji, chairman, Wipro Ltd. In an e-mail sent on April 9, the software czar shared his successes, setbacks and the lessons he learnt during his corporate journey. TOI brings you some excerpts from that as we believe Premji’s message can cut across multiple business domains to benefit millions of employees and employers, and not just Wiproites
Azim Premji

Dear Wiproite,
My own successes and setbacks along the way have taught me some lessons. I wish to share them with you and hope you will find them useful.
Lesson #1: Be careful to ask what you want. You may get it.
What this means is that do not ask too little either of yourself or the others around you. What you ask is what you get. When I look back at the time when I joined Wipro, I was 21. If you ask me whether I thought that Wipro would grow so by someday, the honest answer is that I did not. But neither did I think it would not. We constantly stretched ourselves to higher and higher targets. Sometimes, it seemed possible, sometimes fanciful and sometimes plain insane. But we never stopped raising limits. And we got a lot more than what we bargained for.
Lesson # 2: Respond, don’t react
Always be aware of your emotions and learn to manage them. There is a huge difference between people who react impulsively and those who can disengage themselves and then respond at will. By choosing to respond differently, we can prevent another person from controlling our behaviour. I remember a small story that illustrates this well. There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, Thank you, Sir. One day, the vendor’s assistant asked him, Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don’t you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow? The vendor smiled and replied, “He can’t help being rude and I can’t help being polite. Why should I let his rude behaviour dictate mine?’’
Lesson # 3: Intuitions are important for making decisions
It is important to realise that our intuition is a very important part of decision making. Many things are recorded by our subconscious. Use both sides of the brain. Even that is not enough. Some decisions need the use of the heart as well. When you use your mind and heart together, you may get a completely new and creative answer.
Lesson # 4: Learn to work in teams
The challenges ahead are so complex that no individual will be able to face them alone. While most of our education is focused in individual strength, teaming with others is equally important. You cannot fire a missile from a canoe. Unless you build a strong network of people with complimentary skills, you will be restricted by your own limitations. Globalisation has brought people of different origins, different upbringing and different cultures together. Ability to become an integral part of a cross-cultural team will be a must for your success.
Lesson #5: Never lose your zest and curiosity
All the available knowledge in the world is accelerating at a phenomenal rate. The whole world’s codified knowledge base (all documented information in library books and electronic files) doubled every 30 years in the early 20th century. By the 1970s, the world’s knowledge base doubled every seven years. Information researchers predict that by the year 2010, the world’s codified knowledge will double every 11 hours. Remaining on top of what you need to know will become one of the greatest challenges for you.
The natural zest and curiosity for learning is one of the greatest drivers for keeping updated on knowledge. A child’s curiosity is insatiable because every new object is a thing of wonder and mystery. The same zest is needed to keep learning new things. I personally spend at least 10 hours every week on reading. If I do not do that, I will find myself quickly outdated.
Lesson # 6: Put yourself first
This does not mean being selfish. Nor does it mean that you must become so full of yourself that that you become vain or arrogant.
It means developing your self-confidence. It means, developing an inner faith in yourself that is not shaken by external events. It requires perseverance. It shows up in the ability to rebound from a setback with double enthusiasm and energy. I came across a recent Harvard Business Review which describes this very effectively: No one can truly define success and failure for us. Only we can define that for ourselves. No one can take away our dignity unless we surrender it. No one can take away our hope and pride unless we relinquish them. No one can steal our creativity, imagination and skills unless we stop thinking. No one can stop us from rebounding unless we give up. And there is no way we can take care of others, unless we take care of ourselves.
Lesson # 7: Have a broader social vision
While there is every reason to be excited about the future, we must not forget that we will face many challenges as well. By 2015, we will have 829 million strong workforce. That will make India home to 18% of global working-age population. The key challenge is to transform that into a globally competitive work-force.
This will not be an easy task. Despite all the rapid economic expansion seen in recent years, job growth in India still trails the rise in workingage population. It is important that gains are spread across this spectrum, so that the divide between the employed and the under-employed, is minimised. Education is a crucial enabler that can make this growth as equitable as possible.
Lesson # 8: Play to win
Playing to win is not the same as playing dirty. It is not about winning all the time or winning at any cost. Playing to win is having the intensity to stretch to the maximum and bringing our best foot forward. Winning means focusing on the game. The score board tells you where you are going, but don’t concentrate too much on it. If you can focus on the ball, the scores will move by themselves. I recently came across this story that I thought I would share with you. A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen. He returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal-some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite and asked them to help themselves to coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, you were more concerned about comparing your cups but what you really wanted was coffee. Yet you spent all your time eying each other’s cups.
Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to contain life, but cannot really change the quality of life. Sometimes, by over concentrating on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.”
I wish you all every success in your career and your life.

And more (unwanted) cricket

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:51:00 +0000

Cricket, Cricket, Cricket!!!
I'm still bewildered why India and Indians are so ridiculously and emotionally attached to the game. I am not a die-hard anti-cricket fan. But, with such an explicit showcase of politics and play in the game, why should we still watch and harbour cricket as THE GAME?
News had been flowing in saying that coach Greg Chappell had to be changed. - Well, if his term ends, so be it. But, by changing the coach will the game improve - of course not. It is not like American Soccer where coach calls the game while it is on. It is the eleven players of the team who make / break the game.
A few things that India can do to improve the quality of cricket .....

1. Team selection should be by performance - strictly.
2. Captain should be selected after the team is selected.
3. Out of every three matches recently played, if the player has not performed well in more than one game, remove him from the top 11.
4. If the team does not win, do not give compensation to the players.
5. Do not allow players to sign contracts with advertisers and other commercial interest business if the player is not part of the top eleven.
6. When touring overseas, allow only the players and not their family to go abroad.
7. Get a second eleven ready and keep shuffling the players if they do not perform. - Let us not worry about the experience of the top eleven - what did we achieve in this World cup with experienced players like sachin, sourav, dravid and kumble?

Leading from Below

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:53:00 +0000

A short read this week ... "Leading from Below" available online at WSJ. This focusses on mid and lower management people coming into the corporate responsibility circle. I have heard from my many of my engineering friends that their bosses are just there to fill the places and they would perform better if they were left their own way. I suppose, this article is aimed at such bosses.
Like how the article points out, many bosses are comfortable in their service and governance role - leading their teams, giving update on what is happening to their product, how their product interacts with other products, etc. But there are few, who look more that what is required of their role. They step up to see how they can define new things in the corporate and the technology world. One aspect that the paper pointed out is very relevant nowadays ... "In an age when job cuts are common at even the most successful companies, being a good manager who doesn't make waves is increasingly risky." I hope that each and every 'comfortable' boss tries to shirk of his/her cosy environment and start to take risks and start to lead - not manage.

Better employee ...

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:48:00 +0000

After a long time, I met with a couple of my friends who had been my course/lab mates during my MS program(s). It was a nice time having a chat about many thoughts that traversed our mind. During the chat, one of my friends pointed towards why you should not employ many people in a project. I liked it very much. ....

1. Employees become productive.
2. Employees get to be more responsible.
3. Employees get to recognised and be given due importance.
4. Profit can be shared among lesser number of employees.

... Net, the employee turns to understand the importance of a project, does challenging things, learns more and is also being rewarded more.

I see this in contrast to many companies who tend to bloat their presence just by increasing the headcount. I hope these companies don't start off a race and contribute towards a Bubble 2.0!!!

Cricket is a religion

noreply@blogger.com (K) — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:43:00 +0000

Over the past few days, the Indian news channels have shown their inability to analyse and do justification to their purpose of existence. It is understandable that the billions of people are anxious about the results of each and every world cup cricket match. But, does that mean that the other legitimate news have to take a step back?

All 24x7, the news channels are engaged only in talking about cricket. If want to hear the news in the morning / the evening, it is only cricket!!! Why do we want to give importance to something that is only a game - how much does it affect a commoner? Does the win / loss of a cricket match do anything to affect the daily lifestyle of the commoner? Most of us, Indians, are addicted to cricket - well, addictions is not bad - but addictions to the level that cricket is considered a religion, an emotional one is bad - after all, can we have hope on something as a religion when we see things like India losing to Bangladesh?

All the Indian news channels tend to concentrate all their prime broadcasting time on cricket. Why do we want to give importance to the game? - After all, who is the winner - it is BCCI and the cricket team. It is they who rake in all the money from advertisements and broadcasting and the cricketers who get houses from governments and sops for each and every part of their lifestyle. The Indian news channels have understood the weakness of the common Indian towards cricket and have started to exploit it. Why can't Indian news channels stop this exploitation and start doing proper journalism?